Yamanaka Ino
by Gender Outlaw
Summary: They never say Good Morning, there is no need.


They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness.

Louise Erdrich

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Yamanaka Ino

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Ino twists her ponytail through the last loop of the hair tie and pulls it high on her head. She runs a brush made of plastic that shatters easily when struck - revealing in delight the pure joy of bristles seperating her locks.

She sets the brush down on her desk (next to old love letters she won't admit writing and a picture of her first year at the Academy - standing with a smile all-encompassing even though she is afraid), and leaves the room.

Her parent's door is partly open, and she can see the bed laying as unmade as when her father last stumbled out of it, grabbing his hitate and wrapping it about his forehead before he even opened his eyes - a habit solid as his blood.

The sound and feel of water pressure in the air tells the presence of her mother in her morning shower. Her mother's shoes are waiting for her outside of the bathroom door (soles thin from use), ready for another day of labor.

Ino continues down the hall to an adjacent room, a area which exists soley for the purpose storage and upkeep of her father's (and now her own - which she knows even children won't name, why give a name to that which hurts?) weapons.

A still slick rag lies carefully on a table inside, having been used on a scant few hours before by Inoichi before he set out for the day. The cans of grease, and sharpening stones are yet on display and left ready for Ino's use.

She pulls the chair out from an old desk of her grandmothers (who could write the saddest saddest songs upon it and never cry), and leans back as she removes her daily supply of weapons from a drawer and sets it upon the table.

On the wall above her is a picture of her grandmother with a small child who must be Ino's father. (They are hugging and even there is evidence of the other two clans who they ally themselves with.) There is a window in the corner and soft carpet under Ino's feet - and when the drawers are closed and the stones put away no one would guess what things are sharped in here.

She begins worrying a long strand of hair from her tie to flow through the fingers of a hand. It gets knotted between her fings, and as she loops it about them it slides free in a soothing and unconcious gesture - more ritual than need.

Ino cleans her weapons with a determined thoroughness, rubbing at stains that may or may not exist until her fingers sting. She is happy here.

Even when she is finished she still lets the hair move amid her fingers and listens for the small sound of her Mother moving downstairs to open the store resting under their home.

Ino opens a small drawer in the desk where several sheets of documents and financial papers lay inside. She wipes the grease from her hands off to a worn rag and pulls a some of the paper into her lap. She quietly rifles through bills and shop costs for several taunt minutes.

The shop has it's seasons for production, but they aren't as habitual or extensive as one would hope. Ino kept her thoughts as strongly inside herself as they would have been outside.

She closes the drawer with a silent kind of movement that makes her wonder just where Sakura's ribbon has gone. (She knows. It is tied to the frame capturing the last moment they were young and together.) Things get put away and she packs and straps her holster in, securing each weapon for easy access before even leaving the room.

Downstairs her mother has finished checking each plant for the brilliance of life they all like to display. Ino's job is now to clean the pots and tables they are show-cased upon. Then she will sweep the floor and do general cleaning, to bring a shine to the store that carries all the way into their home.

Her mother is already in the backroom calling out orders and checking their supplies of bulb and leaf. They never say _Good Morning_, there is no need.

Ino threads the strand of hair through her fingers again several more times to enjoy the feeling of it brushing against her face like silk before tucking it behind her ear and pulling her ponytail once again taunt against her head.

And sets to work.

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I have work to do, and I am afraid not to do it.

John O'hara 


End file.
